Tripura: Teachers’ protest turns ugly, several women protestors injured in police lathicharge

Trinamool Cong and the CPI-M have jumped in and accused the BJP government in the state of being insensitive

A demonstration demanding filling up of vacant posts of Graduate Teachers turned ugly in Tripura capital Agartala this afternoon. The demonstrators were allegedly bashed up by police while they were agitating in front of the residence of Education minister Ratan Lal Nath. A number of women who were also part of the agitation were also injured in the incident.

Speaking to Northeast Live, the agitators informed that the government recruited only 615 STGT teachers so far in a period of 4-5 years whereas over 1000 STGT teachers retired every year. The agitators quoting the education minister of the state, said they have been informed that there are no funds for new recruitments. The aggrieved aspirants demanded that the Centre step in and look into the current state of affairs.

According to the agitators, who quoted the RTI reply which they have procured from the Education Department, there are 5,304 vacancies while the total number of qualified Selection Test For Graduate Teachers (STGT) candidates are less than 2000.

Meanwhile, the incident seems to have taken a political turn as leaders from different political parties, especially the Opposition, cornered the government as well as the police with regard to the handling of the incident.

Rajib Banerjee, Trinamool Congress Tripura incharge termed the incident as unfortunate and said that it should not have occurred. Banerjee questioned as to “where is the Susaashan (good governance) as he referred that the 10,323 retrenched teachers were also allegedly thrashed by the police when they went to protest democratically. The TMC leader alleged that the victims had to pay money while getting treated in a government hospital. Rajib Banerjee accused the government of not following the principles of democracy.

CPI-M secretary and former MP Jitendra Choudhury took stock of the victims and their treatment. Choudhury termed the incident as an unprovoked attack by the police and CRPF personnel on the peaceful protestors. The CPI-M leader in a scathing attack on the BJP government said that this has exposed the insensitive nature of the government.

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